Franz Lehar's first stage work, the opera 'Tatjana', was set in Russia and very much stamped by Russian folklore and local color. At the height of his career, in 1926, Lehar once again turned to a subject set in Russia with 'Der Zarewitsch' (The Czarevich). It was in this work that his collaboration with Richard Tauber reached its first climax. The opera singer, as Lehar formulated it, who "earlier occasionally had represented the operetta singer with great vocal resources on the stage, had become the singer of the German operetta." And so things would remain from then on. Tauber had found the composer who wrote music tailored for his graced vocal chords, and Lehar had found the interpreter whom he always must have imagined as his ideal. 'Der Zarewitsch' was the very first Lehar operetta to premiere in Berlin - of course with Tauber. Lehar's impetus toward symphonic grandeur does its part to make this new release in our Lehar edition yet another milestone.